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Wednesday, 27 February 2013

In 2011 FoCM obtained a Council grant which allowed us to
put up 20 bird boxes on the Chorlton Ees and Ivy Green Local Nature Reserve
(see John Agar’s blog entry for March 2011). We put up 10 boxes on the Ivy
Green side of Chorlton Brook and 10 on the Chorlton Ees side.

Last year (15.01.2012) we checked to see if any of the boxes
had been used over the previous nesting season, and to clean out those with old
nests in. The results of this exercise are described in the blog post for
19.01.2013.

A couple of Sundays ago (17.02.2013) a group of us repeated
the exercise. Again, it was John Agar’s son Mark who climbed the ladder and wielded
the electric screwdriver to detach the boxes from their trees and then to
re-attach them.

On the Ivy Green side of the brook all 10 boxes were still
in place, but on the Chorlton Ees side only four of the original 10 were left
(down from six the previous year).

Eight of the boxes we checked contained dry (-ish) nesting
material and no eggs. We concluded that the occupiers of these nests had
probably raised successful broods. Two boxes contained very damp material. This
probably meant that these boxes had been penetrated by rain during the
exceptionally wet summer of 2012; we couldn’t be certain if these soggy nests
had contained successful broods (they could even have been abandoned part way
through nest building). Three boxes contained un-hatched eggs and one contained
a dead bird. Although the corpse was vey degraded, John thought that it was
probably a Great Tit.

Most of the nests were, as we observed last year, constructed
of moss on a foundation of dry grass. Nevertheless, a few contained fibres
derived from human sources. Some contained bright red, wool-like fibres - which
we couldn’t identify. There were also fluorescent, green-ish yellow fibres in
some nests. FoCM member, Chris Hirst suddenly realised that these fibres came
from tennis balls (!) Dog owners regularly take tennis balls into the area to
throw for their pets to chase. The balls must, equally regularly, get lost and
the nesting birds obviously see their bright, fibrous coverings as an ideal
source of nesting material. I’m tempted to interpret the inclusion of these fibres
as a form of avian interior decorating ... but mustn’t get carried away!

Even more bizarrely, a few of the damper boxes contained
colonies of slugs. By coincidence a person from Inverness recently wrote to the
Guardian about slugs in nest boxes; she wrote:

“Last autumn I
took down the wooden bird houses from the silver birch and one of them when I
opened it had at least 36 large slugs packed very, very tightly together in the
box ... stuffed in. They appeared to be possibly hibernating although it was
still early autumn and not cold. Actually looking at them it was rather like
opening a tin of pilchards and seeing them all packed neatly and tightly
together. I was so revolted that I could only rush to dispose of them and
didn't even check whether they were alive or dead.”

None of our boxes
contained that many slugs!

The above quote
was contained in article by the Guardian correspondent, Jane Perrone (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2013/feb/20/slugs)
and contains some surprising information, namely that the slugs in the box were,
almost certainly a “non-social aggregation” and probably represented a strategy
to conserve moisture (do slugs ever ‘aggregate socially, I wonder? Getting
carried away again! Sorry!). Also a group of slugs is called a “cornucopia”.
Who knows? Perhaps you’ll get an opportunity to use that fact in a social
situation!

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Welcome to our blog

The Friends of Chorlton Meadows cover Chorlton Ees, Ivy Green and Hardy Farm community orchard. The group is interested in taking a practical approach to working with the Mersey Valley Countryside Warden Service to manage the sites for the conservation of flora and fauna; and have an active programme of events through the year.